"Intra aluminum Boscu cu nec Paute you chips!" Ficus carica L. In the woods with a trouser pocket full of figs from the Salento Lecce.

"Intra aluminum Boscu cu nec Paute you chips!" Ficus carica L. In the woods with a trouser pocket full of figs from the Salento Lecce.
Antonio Bruno *
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I remember the summer in the Masseria del Salento Lecce Nardo Pendinelli to boys in the morning when we went to breakfast with a basket in hand in the nearby countryside overrun with fig trees that ripen from June until late September when my family fell in October because For us guys, to start school. In this note a few thoughts on Agronomist opportunity to resume cultivation.
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In the bowl of clay (capasa) figs (dried chips) with the ubiquitous almond in the center, in front of the fireplace, the red embers of that company held in the winter. Wonderful image of us, men and women of Salento Lecce, guardians and conservators of the ancient traditions of the Mediterranean. We in the Salento Lecce that on the shores of Great Salt Lake we ate, eat and eat the fig tree that bears fruit which were kept after being left to dry in the sun of the south.
My father told me that was so hungry during the Second World War, he was already 16 years old railroad worker, and since there was no bread, is fed with dried figs that her grandmother put in his pocket: "Nna Paute you chips! "or a pants pocket full of dried figs.
Yeah! My father as Seneca? That bold approach! I really do not know if they are bold for my father, or that Seneca writes in the first years after Christ: "The room is kept to a minimum, it is ready in an hour, you will always dried figs, never tablets for writing; figs, if I have bread, serve with bread, if you do not have it, from bread. "
But how many figs produced a fig del Salento Lecce? Prof. Guglielmi wrote in 1906 that reached the age of twenty years, an average tree produces 80 pounds of figs. In 1942, Prof. Novoli. Giacinto Donno noted the production of figs from ages 25 to 50 years for a separate variety, but still higher than the pounds of figs per tree.
It must be said that the fig tree to increase its production up to 20 years and then stabilized up to 50 years of age and then decreases.
Prof. Ferdinand Valais in 1909 described 30 varieties of figs del Salento Lecce and has shown throughout 1994.
The Puglia region soon to discuss the proposed law aimed at protecting and restoring gene of interest in agriculture at risk of extinction. The law provides for intervention programs and the establishment of regional voluntary register of indigenous genetic resources and biodiversity of the Atlas region. Puglia has a gene bank, only in Italy and among the top ten in the world, which can certainly act as a protection of native species and which for that reason, you should activate as soon as possible to the wealth of varieties of figs Salento Lecce.
The food "fresh fig" was so important for Salento, Lecce, the varieties are characterized by production in different periods (enrollment of production) so as to have the production of early figs from mid-June until 20 July and the figs from early August until November in which the so-called mature variety Natalini.
The fig tree planted after that does not need little care. The only care that our ancestors were scrupulously caprification was that the ancient technique for obtaining larger and more flavorful figs pollinated by pollen of the plant with caprifico. How is it? He described Teafrasto (371 BC-287 BC) philosopher and botanist, greek, a disciple of Aristotle in his treatise "Causae plantarum:" You make the caprification this: the flies born from the fruits of wild figs hatch. In fact they are born. But looking like a food, take flight and head for the fruit of the fig tree (grown) ... When they are half-closed the heart of the fruit, absorbing excess moisture and bring into the outside air ... Deprived of food [because the fruits of caprifico rot before reaching maturity], in seeking what is their own, are attracted by what he looks like. This happens even when one looks to the caprification, if in the vicinity of cultivated figs are of caprification. So alongside the figs grown in the highest part of the plantations, the planting of caprification, early varieties in addition to those early, late varieties side of the late, intermediate varieties next to intermediates, so that the caprification occur for each variety at the right time . All clear?
As they gathered figs? With a flexible hook approached the branch of the fig tree that is removed after being deposed in the basket. The collection was repeated every 2 to 3 days.
But how many figs are produced in the Salento Lecce? The data collected by prof. Giacinto Donno in the years 1939 to 1942 totaled about 100 thousand tons for the province of Lecce, along with 200 thousand tons in the province of Brindisi, and 100 thousand in the province of Taranto, in 1942 accounted for 52% of national production dried figs!
Today a pack of 300 grams of dried figs with almonds is sold at 6.80 Euro, which means about 22 euro per kilo. I wish to extend to the attention of my loyal readers who ask me to know what you can produce an alternative to oil and screw these few numbers, the density of a forest of fig trees should not exceed 700 trees per hectare with the data of the observations of Prof. Giacinto Donno made in 1942 in the countryside of the Novoli
Salento Lecce know that the average production of a fig tree in the twentieth year is 100 pounds per plant also ideal for drying, water loss should reach 30-35% by weight.
Even if fermarmarsi to a maximum production per unit of fresh figs, up to 19 tonnes per hectare of crop specialist, as required by the product of the Protected Designation of Origin "Cool White Cilento," we would have a gross production of 380 thousand euro to be sold hectare.
It would be worthwhile, through the work of the law aimed at protecting and restoring gene of interest in agriculture at risk of extinction of the Puglia region, spreading fig tree in the woods of Salento Lecce which deserves a study aimed at improving the technical cultivation and improvement of technology for the use of the product. Send this appeal to scientists Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Bari and my own request, I remind myself, which was made by Salento Lecce who were famous men of our glorious past. Of course I can not compare me to people like Professor. Wallis, who wrote this in 1909 or the prof. De Rosa that he wrote this in 1911 and, least of all, the prof. Women who did the same my request in 1942. I, softly, I add my pen, even these days, my keyboard, to a chorus of people who for centuries have called attention in respect of a tree that has accompanied the life of our ancestors over the last 8 thousand years.
I wonder and ask you if you gave a new voice to the Valais, and De Rosa woman was the cornerstone for a research project on the protection and recovery of the genetic diversity of agricultural interest of the Fig, Ficus carica L . Salento Lecce at risk of extinction.


Bibliography

Teafrasto, Causae plantarum
Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Epistolae morales to Lucilium, LXXXVII, 1-3
Giacinto Donno, The Fig Tree in Puglia, Southern Agriculture - Naples A.1 N. 12-1948
Antonio Piga - Salvatore D 'Aquino - Mario Agabbio - Papoff Claude, INFLUENCE OF PACKAGING WITH PLASTIC FILMS ON THE CONSERVATION OF FICO
FIGS ALMOND SALENTO 300 gr. http://cgi.ebay.it/FICHI-SECCHI-MANDORLATI-SALENTO-300-gr-/190475723230
Dried figs with almond-Producer: lu Sciarabba, http://www.lusciarabba.it/prodotto.asp?id=750
Specification for the Protected Designation of Origin "Cool White Cilento" http://www.sito.regione.campania.it/agricoltura/tipici/pdf/disciplinare-fico-cilento.pdf